Mozilla Want To Bring Firefox to iOS But Limitations Prevent It.

The reason I was won over to Android was the customisation. We can choose how it looks with a different home screen launcher, we can choose different wallpapers and the way the lock screen appears. We can also choose between different web browsers, each of which are actually different – not only in appearance, but by the way they execute tasks. Something Apple doesn’t allow, apart from the stock Safari App (obviously). Because of this decision Jay Sullivan, the company’s vice president spoke to an audience at SXSW and said that Firefox wont be coming to iOS until Apple let them use their own code.

A little known fact is that replacement browsers on Apple iPhones render websites using their UIWebView component whereas the stock Safari use a much quicker JavaScript engine called ‘Nitro’. Even Google’s Chrome gets this treatment. Fair right?

It’s a real shame but at the same time not too surprising that Apple have taken this route to essentially cheat by supplying an inferior code to that of their Nitro engine to other browser developers.

It’s not all boo hiss though with a recent peek at a Firefox iPad browser codenamed ‘Junior’. There’s no news of a release for the browser just yet, but if you want to find some more, check out this article from The Verge.

About Aaron Richardson

I'm the founder and editor of n3rdabl3.co.uk and a married, bass playing, puppy and kitten kissing, string bean. I'm often compared to a butchers pencil. All opinions expressed are my own and do not reflect that of n3rdabl3.co.uk.